kbinnz - Harry's New Home

Dumbledore sighed. "Please, my boy, give her a chance. I looked everywhere for an instructor, but none were to be found. I approached the Ministry hoping we might be able to borrow an Auror, but when the Minister responded by providing Madame Umbridge, I was in no position to refuse."

"And her qualifications?" Snape asked forbiddingly, his tone making it abundantly plain that he doubted she had any.

"Not perhaps any that are directly relevant," Dumbledore admitted, "but she has had a very distinguished career in the Ministry, and that may be of interest and utility to the students who are interested in following such a path themselves. And the curriculum is fixed тАУ any competent witch or wizard can demonstrate the majority of spells."

"I shall immediately instruct my prefects to set up study groups," Snape responded acidly. "At least my younger snakes can benefit from the experience of the older ones."

"I do hope you'll give her a chance, my boy," Albus said, and his voice had a note of steel in it. "I'm sure you can recall how uncomfortable you were during your first term teaching."

Snape subsided, grumbling to himself. "I was never incompetent," he muttered rebelliously.

"At least it's not for the whole year," McGonagall sighed in his ear. "Would you like to create some inter-House study groups? I can have my prefects contact yours."

Snape nodded. "Perhaps an informal Defense Club would be a good idea. I imagine the NEWTS and OWLS students would be most interested in such a thing."

Both turned morosely to their meals, the students' happy chatter swirling around them.

TBCтАж

*Chapter 44*: Chapter 44

Next morning, the term got off to an inauspicious start. Shortly before classes began, Harry flew into their quarters and began ransacking his room. "What on earth are you doing?" Snape demanded, coming to the door of the boy's bedroom.

"I can't find my homework!" Harry yelled from where he was half-under the bed. "Have you seen it down here? It's gone! All the professors are gonna be furious at me!"

"This is what happens when you don't maintain an orderly room," Snape scolded. "Why didn't you put it in your bookbag?"

"I did!" Harry protested, emerging from under the bed. "I know I did, but it's not there now. I checked my whole trunk and around my bed in the Tower an' everything."

Snape's brows drew together. This was uncomfortably reminiscent of some of his childhood experiences. "Could your roommates have chosen to destroy or hide your work?" he asked suspiciously, remembering all too many days when exactly that had happened to him.

Harry stared at him in frank astonishment. "Why would they do that?"

Snape relaxed a bit; apparently Harry did not have the troubles with his Housemates that he himself had experienced. "Perhaps as a prank?"

Harry shook his head adamantly. "No, they were all helpin' me look. I mean, Ron's my best mate, an' Neville just wouldn't do something like that, an' it's not like Seamus or Dean are mad at me." Harry grimaced. "Dudley used to rip up my homework all the time, so I used to hide it, but it's never ever been a problem here. I just don't know where it could be!" he finished with a wail, and Snape realized just how close to tears the boy was.

"Calm yourself," he ordered brusquely, but the hand that reached out to rest on the boy's shoulder was gentle. Harry sniffled and stopped rushing around. "There is one benefit to having a faculty member for your guardian. I am well aware of all your homework assignments and that you completed them, since I required you to submit them to me for review. I will write a note for you for each of your teachers, and while they may still choose to penalize you for your carelessness in misplacing your work," he overrode the boy's protests, "they are likely to give you at least partial credit for having done it."

Harry drooped, but he knew it was the best he could hope for. "You think I'll still get punished?" he asked unhappily.

"You can certainly expect a detention in Potions," his guardian told him sternly. "Perhaps an evening spent recreating your essay will help remind you to be more organized."

"But that's not fair," Harry argued hotly. "You saw me do it! You even read it!"

"The assignment is not only to complete the work, but to hand it in on its due date so that it can be evaluated. You therefore did not complete the assignment in full, and you will be punished for it."

Harry gave his father an angry look. " 'S not fair!"

"Any more cheek from you, Mr Potter, and I will reconsider writing a note to your other professors," Snape warned, and Harry unwillingly subsided.

Most of the other teachers that day were тАУ unsurprisingly тАУ more forgiving than Professor Snape, though most did require Harry to visit them during office hours so they could orally examine him on the material. Between his guardian's attesting to his having done the work and his obvious familiarity with the material, though, he avoided any additional detentions. Even the one he did receive wasn't that awful тАУ Snape insisted he spend the first half tidying his ransacked room, but he then relented and rather than having Harry rewrite his old essay, something Harry regarded as equivalent to writing lines, he assigned a new one. The new topic was rather interesting, and Harry nearly forgot to sulk as he left the detention.

Still, he told himself, it wasn't really fair that he did extra, just because he lost his homework. A little voice inside him argued that his teachers had to have heard that one before, but he retorted that this time they knew it was true. He supposed his da had a point about him being supposed to hand it in, but Harry was more in the mood to feel annoyed about it than to concede any possibility of validity to his father's argument.

It's not like he had tried to lose the homework or even that he had been particularly careless with it. He distinctly remembered placing it into his schoolbagтАж but then it had vanished. He bit his lip. There was no way Dudley was around, but what could have happened to the work? Hermione had suggested that maybe he had taken it out somewhere to double-check it, and Ron had laughed hysterically at that idea, much to Hermione's annoyance. Ron had taken a more laidback approach, arguing that "Don't worry, mate. It's bound to turn up. Probably right after your detention." Harry huffed. It was all right for Ron to be so relaxed about it. It wasn't his homework that had mysteriously vanished.

Harry sighed. He was probably making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe the papers had slipped out of his bag while he was moving his things up to the Tower. Or Peeves might have nicked them when he wasn't looking. OrтАж in a magical castle, there were plenty of options. Harry just hoped nothing else went missing.

The next day was Harry's first DADA class, and despite Snape's note and Harry's offer to be quizzed on the material, Professor Umbridge loudly tsked at him and ordered him to the front of the room. Then, as Harry squirmed with humiliation, she informed the class, with saccharine sweetness, that she was not only assigning Harry a double essay as punishment, but she was also taking off twenty points from Gryffindor. The rest of the students were wide eyed at this draconian penalty, and Harry had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling in outrage as she spent the next fifteen minutes alternately scolding him for laziness in not doing his work and pointing out to the rest of the class that she would not tolerate lying children. It was as if she were going out of his way to make Harry look bad in front of the other students, and Harry was crimson with mortification at being so publicly belittled.

Happily, she went in for such overkill that her plan backfired, and rather than giving Harry scornful looks, the rest of the class was overt in their sympathy when he was finally permitted to take his seat.